CCSS and WL

I just said that to make it sound like I work for a railroad company.

I subscribe to an ACTFL listserv for world language teachers.  Much of the time, it doesn't really add anything to my instruction; it's mostly people asking for help in doing work I'm not interested in doing yet (recommendations for exchange programs and the like), asking for recommendations on master's programs, or complaining about vendors trying to sell things on the listserv.  Really, guys? 5 posts a day for 3 weeks on the ethics of trying to sell Spanish books to Spanish teachers?

But on this morning's, one of the members asks an interesting question.  She wants to know how people are integrating Common Core into their world language classrooms and what the standards are.  I'm going to answer her in full over the weekend, and also hopefully secure her permission to re-post her question here.

But, in the meantime, the short answer is that there aren't any Common Core standards for world languages.  However, the standards for ELA look a lot, a LOT, like the ACTFL standards for world language.  Since the Common Cores are designed to encourage cross-curricular work, pairing the communication skills learned in, say, Spanish class can and should be used to explicitly reinforce the ELA standards.